Swiss banker gives details of super rich to WikiLeaks

Swiss banker gives details of super rich to WikiLeaks

A former Swiss banker on Monday handed over documents of 2,000 high net worth people from the United States, Britain and Asia to WikiLeaks that he claims would expose attempts by these business leaders and lawmakers to evade tax payments.

It is not known if there are any Indians in this list of high net worth people whose secret documents have been given to WikiLeaks.

Rudolf Elmer, a former employee of Swiss-based Bank Julius Baer, said the account holders include celebrities, business leaders and lawmakers.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, fighting cases to extradite him to Sweden to face sex charges, appeared alongside Elmer to say that they would make these documents, contained in two discs, public in the future.

According to a report in Swiss newspaper Der Sonntag, the data covers multinationals, financial firms and wealthy individuals from many countries, including the United Kingdom, the US and Germany, and covers the period 1990-2009.

Swiss banker gives details of super rich to WikiLeaks

"The one thing on which I am absolutely clear is that the banks know, and the big boys know, that money is being secreted away for tax evasion purposes," Elmer told Observer newspaper.

He said the files being handed over to whistle-blower site WikiLeaks exposed activities in offshore financial

centres.

At the press briefing, Assange said that, with his organisation focussed on the publication of its cache of about 250,000 diplomatic cables, it could be several weeks before Elmer's files are reviewed and posted in the WikiLeaks web site.

"We will treat this information like all other information we get," Assange said. "There will be a full revelation."